Is Junkspace an evolutionary loop? and where do architects fit in?
Is Junkspace an evolutionary loop? and where do architects
fit in?
Air conditioning has removed the need for forms that can be
naturally cooled, new building technologies has removed the necessity of using
expensive building materials, and there is hundreds of years of architecture
that people can look back upon to create aesthetics. So does this new age of junkspace want an
architect? Architecture requires time
and in junkspace time is money and money is junkspace’s life blood. Architects try to create the best possible solution
for the problem given to them but “Junkspace does not pretend to create
perfection, only interest.” (117)
How do we as architects insert ourselves into junkspace and
not simply as someone who has a license and can take on the liability of the structure?
Perhaps it is like the old markets that started out as organic groupings of
sellers into one area where people came to buy their goods which evolved in America
into the main street of a town where people built beautiful buildings for their
shops to stand out among the rest. Of course
this evolved (or devolved) into the strip mall and back to the organic system
of the markets of old. Is this a sign of
a loop? Will economical spaces transform again into something where form and
order can be prevalent once again and the want of architects is reignited?
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| Downtown York SC |
Should we make this an opportunity for architects to figure
out how to transform it once again or should we be changing the way we work to
adapt to the mindset of junkspace more than we already have? To not just stamp
the drawings but find a way we can uplift these spaces to a higher level, or is
that impossible within the system that is junkspace? Perhaps we abandon
junkspace and focus on the revitalization of the downtown seeing as open air
markets have not gone away through the transformations of economical spaces (Just
look at the jockey lot in Anderson or the Flea market in Myrtle Beach still going
strong 2017) and hedge our bets that main
streets will not evaporate either. I am not sure which option would be the best
but it is worth exploring.
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| Jockey lot - Anderson SC |
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| Open air market |
I've had some of the best nights of my life in the dingiest dive bars, totally lacking in fancy materials but rich in interesting people. The experience overshadowed the space. I think that junkspace that is empty is useless, but if it is filled and active, it isn't junkspace.
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